The last presidential elections in Malawi must be held again. At the vote round in May 2019, tipp-ex, a white correction fluid, was used to distort votes, according to the Constitutional Court. Malawi residents must return to the polls within five months.
Seated president Peter Mutharika won the previous election with a slight difference from his main political rival Lazarus Chakwera: 38.6 to 35.4 percent of the vote. Mutharika’s victory caused much unrest among the population.
According to Chakwera, more than 1.4 million ballot papers had to be declared invalid. A judge of the Court acknowledged Monday that “many things went wrong”.
The decision is seen by experts as a huge victory for democracy in one of the poorest countries in the world, writes The Guardian. Judges needed more than ten hours to read five hundred pages of decisions. During that time they were strictly protected by heavily armed soldiers.
Former vice president Saulos Chilima, who finished third in the last election with about 20 percent, will again become the vice president until the next election.
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